Desert Dune Bashing

So Qatar's football (soccer) team recently won the AFC Asian Cup (which automatically qualifies them for the FIFA Confederations Cup....which ironically is being held here in Qatar in 2022). The nation celebrated! There were parades, dancing in the street, and best of all businesses offering discounts! We had been talking about going on a Dune Bashing trip....so to be able to take the trip at a 21% off discount...I signed us up with 365 Adventures!

We were picked up mid afternoon (we did the half day adventure) and headed out of town. It was about an hour or so drive to the Al Rawnaq. When we started getting close the usual landscape, suddenly had an oil refinery was on the horizon.

As we got closer we got better and better views of the gas being burned off.

This was my first time seeing gas flares or flare stacks. It was quite memorizing and I needed to look up what the are for. The googles say flare stacks are used to burn of flammable gas that builds up during the refining process and protects against unplanned over pressuring.

To help you orient your self, we stopped at the red pin.

Where did we stop? Well we arrived at a little village area for a rest stop. The driver need to let air out of the tires prior to us getting going (less air pressure makes for a smoother ride/better maneuverability in the fine sand). At this little village there was a tent to get some Arabic coffee, camels to ride, and falcons to hold. So, naturally, we partook!

Clarissa was a little unsure of the giant camel but Mason throughly enjoyed it.

We opted for a short little walk around, but they also offer walks for 30 minutes or so that go up a  dune....maybe next time. The sitting/standing process with camels is so crazy! Their legs bend like accordions and it's a bit rocky (ie don't hold a full cup of coffee in your hand while the camel is getting down).

While waiting in line for the toilet, I had time to admire the dunes we were about to bash...lol.

Our typically timid Clarissa was now all, sure I'll hold a falcon. We did notice that this falcon did not have the usually mask covering it's eyes, but that didn't stop Clarissa at all.

You can see the coffee tent in the background.

She really enjoyed holding the falcon. Richard saw how much fun Clarissa had, so he took a turn as well.

It was now time to head off (our driver was waiting for another one, they typically drive in pairs/small groups so if one vehicle gets stuck in the sand, there is someone close by to help).

I had packed the GoPro and the drone. It ended up being a bit to windy for the drone, but we did get some video with the dash mounted GoPro. Though the video doesn't show quite how exciting it was....so I sped most of it up a bit.

Midway though you may have noticed the driver parked at the rim of a dune. There was a nice look out point. We all got out. The sand was so soft and fine. We are looking out into the Persian Gulf. Our driver said at high tide, the darker sandy area fills with water and when migrating through flamingos will feed there. Sadly, it was low tide and no flamingos.

Behind us was sand/dunes as far as the eye could see.

I got the neat shot of our driver and our companion car's driver looking out in the Persian Gulf.

At times, it almost felt like we were in a live Land Cruiser commercial....lol.

Also, along the way in the video you pass a bedouin camp. During the winter, when the weather is quite pleasant locals will set up tents in the desert and spend time out here (equivalent to Americans spending weekends on the lake). Finally we made it to where we couldn't drive anymore! We live near the red dot, had started our way into the dunes near the Umm Said (aka where the road ends) and had travelled to the blue dot. Directly across from us was the K.S.A. as the freeway signs say (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia).

Here's the photo of the map image. The mountains across the water are in Saudi Arabia.

Mason's stomach had stopped enjoying the ride a while back, but Clarissa was feeling okay and got out to play in the sand and make sand angels. I may or may not have posted on facebook using a cell signal from Saudi Arabia (but still won't mark it off on our map).

After hanging out here for a while to enjoy the views, we took a different (quicker) route back. We stopped to put air back in our tires. It was somewhat funny as we still had to drive over sand a little longer to get back to the main road. It was a noticeably bumpier ride. While putting air in the tires, my eye caught the remote control cars racing. My brother and nephew love remote control vehicles (cars, helicopters, you name it), so I took this little clip for them.

As you can tell with the lighting, the sun was starting to go down as we left. When we got about 20 minutes from home, we ordered some dinner to be delivered. It was fun afternoon and not something we would have ever done in the US!

P.S. Eco-minded Tree-Hugger Deb did note that all the cars avoided any shrubbery that was growing. We also did not see any wildlife. Due to typically high day time temps, a lot of desert animals are nocturnal and there are no nighttime dune bashing tours - I would like think to protect the wildlife.

Baladna Farms

Upon our arrival in Doha, I researched to see if there were any woman's organization (Georgia had IWA, Fiji had AWA, IWA and Corona). I found the AWA - American Woman's Association. I joined at a back to school night back in September where they had a table. They plan some really great activities (carpet shop - history/tour, Mall of Qatar behind the scenes tour with free lunch, kayaking trip, Museum of Islamic Art tour, etc) in addition to the monthly meetings and holiday parties. So needless to I've gotten to do some pretty cool things. One of which was a behind the scenes tour of Baladna Farms.

Have you heard of Baladna Farms? I bet you have, but just didn't know it. So back in June 2017, when the blockade was started, it suddenly affected where Qatar imported foods from. Turkey became the primary country for imports, while they looked for other solutions. At the time, Baladna Farms was a small sheep and goat farm. They quickly converted it to a dairy farm (in the middle of the desert). Once everything was built in record time, cows were brought in. The initial batch of cows arrived by plane from Europe! (I bet you saw that video on the news or YouTube - if not google "cows plane Qatar"). They now have over 10,000 cows some shipped in from the United States even!

Lol, I know those aren't real cows, they were just some of the fun statues around the property. So AWA was able coordinate a free tour and lunch for members! Yep, I was there! We started with a talk and video from the CEO (he said they do so many tours now he only comes and talks to special groups). We watched a video about how much they have accomplished in just over a year. Here's a video I found on the company website (shows cows coming off the plane).

Since the farm is a ways north of Doha, to attract visitors to this novelty. There is also a small park on the property with all kinds of things to do (which we got to see/check out for free). There is a petting zoo with all kinds of animals. A sleepy camel,

some emus with attitude,

our camel friend woke up when he saw that we brought some veggie treats to feed it,

goofy goats, miniature donkeys,

miniature ponies too (there is a place for kids to take pony rides), there were some zebras,

a pretty peacock, bunnies, snakes, lizards,

and some speedy tortoises (they could have totally beat one of those rabbits any day).

Caution - no running after short people here!

After the animal section, we headed back to the nursery (plant nursery). Given there are so many cows making a lot of cow poop....I mean fertilizer, they have partnered with a nursery. The nursery starts plants with soil and this free fertilizer. In addition, the fertilizer is being used in all the areas that grass and plants are being planted to beautify the city for World Cup 2022.

We got to pedal around on the multi-seater bikes (2- and 4-seaters) through the green house portion of the park.

There is also a zip line/obstacle course, bumper boats, some cafes, and a plant shop (I picked up an aglanema plant- Chinese evergreen and a hypoestes plant - pink polka dot for about $10US total!).

After we left the park, we headed to main restaurant. For a lunch of cheesy and yogurt sauced goodness. They had some little cheese boats (reminded me of Georgian khachapuri), salads, meat kabobs, rice, I can't even remember all, they just kept bringing out more food! After lunch was the highlight of the trip. Milking time!

Given the facility is brand new and has some government backing, they built the top of the line milking system. A rotary milking parlor that can milk 100 cows at a time with each cow on the rotary for a mere eight minutes.

It was pretty awesome to watch. In the back right of the photo, the cows line up. As the machine turns, one at a time they step in and get hooked up to the milking apparatus, by the time they have made a complete circle they are done. They back out and carry on their day! A group of us were standing on the far side (so about 4 minutes into the 8 minute rotation) and nearly every cow was already done milking! Occasionally we would see a cow still attached and we could watch the milking apparatus come flying down (#55 was still milking, her neighbors were done).

After pumping when returning to work for both of my kids when they were babies, I am quite jealous of the under five minutes and done efficiency of these cows!!

Baladna Farms is constantly expanding the products they make (they've moved on from milk to include flavored milk, yogurt, cheese). I was surprised when I went to get the link that they now offer skim milk (before it was only full fat and low fat)! Its nice to be able to buy local and fresh!!

It was a fun day with a neat plant wall at the exit (that's the Emir's image and Qatari flag made of flowers). We were running a bit late when we left (we had carpooled via vans), when got to the meet up point I hopped in the car and headed home, Mason was staying after school and I pulled into our neighborhood right next to Clarissa's bus. Lol, I had a couple minutes to get to the house and inside before she had a chance to ride her bike home from the drop-off point!